Free Style Guides Icon Set For Writers And Editors
Today, we’re excited to present you with a free icon set, called Style Guides. Perfect for websites with an editorial flair, Style Guides features 14 high-quality icons ranging from 32×32 to 512×512 pixels. Designed by Thomas McGee of WinePress of Words, this set has been exclusively released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Adapted and expanded from a previous set, Style Guides makes an excellent addition to any website, especially those related to the writing trade. Perfect for your next client’s website or to showcase your own editorial endeavors, these icons would be useful to any designer or developer.
Download the Icon Set for Free
You may use this set for free and without any restrictions. Use the icons for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed or rented. Please link to this article if you wish to spread the word.
- Download the set for free! (ZIP, 1.1 MB)
Behind the Design
Here are some insights from the designer himself:
Writing and editorial quality is essential to communicating a message. Even without an editor, any blog or website thrives on quality content just as much as, if not more than, a compelling design. With this in mind, we’ve decided to develop an icon set featuring some of today’s most trusted style guides.
Each crafted for its unique genre of writing, style guides help magazines, newspapers and websites keep their writing style structured and consistent for optimum readability. Use these icons to show your readers which style guide you use to maintain editorial quality or as a nice resource for a writing and editing website. Enjoy!
Thank you, Thomas! We sincerely appreciate your work and your good intentions!
(al)
DJ
June 20th, 2011 4:30 amhmm…not sure i get the point of these icons? Seems very specific….
Dylan Parry
June 20th, 2011 4:34 amWhilst the icons are very pretty, I’m not sure I see a use case for them. They’re targeting an extremely specific audience, and I’m not sure even that audience would have much of a use for them :(
Thomas McGee
June 20th, 2011 9:08 amHi Dylan,
I appreciate your feedback, it’s always helpful to receive in order to know how better to craft icons for relevancy and usefulness to the design community. You’re absolutely correct that these are for a specific audience, but that’s hopefully what will make them useful. Editors and writers use such style guides nearly every day, and what better way to showcase editorial quality than to depict which style guides are in use?
Think of it this way: a designer may have icons on their site to showcase their Twitter, Dribbble, Forrst, etc.—whereas a writer or editor could have Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, and APA Style to show the type of writing/editing they prefer.
With a bit of creativity I’m sure they’ll come in handy!
Patrick
June 20th, 2011 4:36 amI believe that this is no problem. If you will need to ever use them, you’ll find them right here. And that’s what matters.
Gerd Wippich
June 20th, 2011 4:59 amA freebie is a freebie is a freebie…
Rob McLarty
June 20th, 2011 5:16 amI got all excited looking for links to the actual style guides of all these things. Alas, there was only a link to download the actual images of these styleguides. That’s sort of cool, but not as cool as I initially thought. Like Gerd said though: a freebie is a freebie, so you can’t really complain about that.
Thomas McGee
June 20th, 2011 7:07 amThis didn’t include links to the specific style guides as it was more meant to showcase the freebies, but you might find this article helpful. It has a collection of links and resources from the top five writer’s style guides:
http://www.winepressofwords.com/2011/04/a-guide-to-todays-top-5-writing-style-guides/
Thanks for the feedback!
pica-ae
June 20th, 2011 5:56 ami dont really get what they are for… and isnt using any of those styleguides against copyright anyway? (wherever i may find the actualy styleguides) not the icons of course
ePubChris
June 20th, 2011 6:49 amAs an eBook developer, I have to say these are really unique and fresh. Props!
Dan
June 20th, 2011 7:00 amWhat everyone else said; I don’t see the point behind these icons, but thank you for the freebie nonetheless. When I stumble across the actual styleguides for these publications I will be sure to use these icons to link to them.
Avangelist
June 20th, 2011 7:54 amWithout being too cynical this seems like a post put together to get yourself listed on a site with high traffic. The style guides themselves, now they’re very informative and indeed useful. These graphics.. I mean are you even using them?
Jimmy
June 20th, 2011 8:56 amI would be willing to pay $100 to anyone who can find a genuine use for these. Or am I missing something?
Malcolm
June 20th, 2011 9:35 am$100. Really?
A freelance editor or journalist normally operates according to one, or several, of these style guides. If they have a website or blog, it would be a nice touch to add a visual indication of his/her capabilities. Thus, at least one use for the icons.
Web designers often put little “HTML5 validated” badges on their sites. For writers, this would be sort of the same idea.
marc
June 21st, 2011 6:19 amAlright, Jimmy, pay the man! Pay up!
Joshua
June 20th, 2011 10:28 amVery nice. It’s a shame that the Guardian icon has “style” set in an arbitrary typeface, but presumably it would be too expensive to licence Guardian Egyptian just for this purpose.
Katie Van Heest
June 20th, 2011 11:09 amI suppose these icons do serve a niche population, but as someone in that target market I can say that they are excellent! I’m an academic editor, and I’ve already put them up on my website. Many of my site visitors want immediate confirmation that I can support their disciplines’ style guides, and straightforward icons displaying as much do the trick.
I don’t know if this qualifies as “link dropping,” but if anyone wants to see the icons in action, here’s my homespun site: http://www.tweedediting.com. I’ve put the icons on the homepage, the services page, and the cite-management (documentation formatting) page.
Thanks, Thomas and Smashing.
Taryn
June 20th, 2011 11:34 amI’m a freelance writer and editor/proofreader and I keep an online portfolio site. Right now, I just keep a text list of the style guides I’m familiar with and experienced editing for on my site. But I love the idea of using icons instead. A little extra visual flair to an otherwise kinda boring “Here’s what I can do…” page.
So thanks, Thomas!
baxo
June 20th, 2011 6:47 pmnice icons…it would be great if you inlucde the PSD also.tnx :)
Joe Medley
June 21st, 2011 9:14 amThank you for the freebee. I’ll put these to work immediately. I would like to request two additions to the set.
* Garner’s Modern American Usage
* A blank template I can use to make additions to the set.
Thank you
Web Designer Alex
June 22nd, 2011 7:16 amWhile these icons are definitely for a particular niche market, you can’t help but think that they are beautifully crafted and well designed. Thomas obviously had those users in mind, and accomplished the task at hand! I can absolutely see myself using some of these at a near job in the future.
Thanks Thomas and Smashing! Love the stuff you all share with us.
kabukigaze
June 22nd, 2011 7:45 amthanks =D
Rick Squires
June 29th, 2011 4:30 amI think these icons are marvelous! I see their use on my academic library’s website where they will add some visual interest as well as some class! Thanks for providing them! And to those who see no use for them, simply click your back button and spare us the comments!
PeteWhoops
July 2nd, 2011 8:01 amI don’t mean to be rude but this freebie is useless, nothing less.
When I read “styles” I was expecting .psd files with styles in it and not just very specific icons.
I’m not even sure a single SmashingMagazine reader will ever have use of this.
Lauren @ Pure Text
July 30th, 2011 4:58 amThese icons are great! I wonder if they can be re-sized, though. Is this allowed?
MJ
February 28th, 2012 2:39 pmThese are great! I know many writers who will appreciate these. Thanks!
H-Works
September 6th, 2012 11:58 amGreat work thank you.
Would have been a step-stone in mankind history if we could edit it :p